


january 28 1986

by rosesscythes



Category: RWBY
Genre: Gen, Near Death Experiences, Past Character Death, Spoilers: Volume 8 (RWBY)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-28
Updated: 2021-01-28
Packaged: 2021-03-14 11:22:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 815
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29045313
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rosesscythes/pseuds/rosesscythes
Summary: "For the next agonizing two minutes and forty-five long secondsShe called out the truth on her broken radio'I'm alive, I'm alive, I'm alive'" - Frank Turner, "Silent Key"
Relationships: Penny Polendina & Pietro Polendina
Kudos: 6





	january 28 1986

Penny was falling.

More specifically, she was falling and  _ burning _ . Her body and mind roared with fire alike as she streaked through the sky above Atlas, accelerating until terminal velocity, until she hit the ground or the ocean below. Flames licked at her aura, sapping its already low reserves, and she was fading in and out of consciousness far too quickly to combat it in any meaningful way. Even when she was awake, however, her processor felt like an inferno in its own right. Her rapidly fading brain was screaming to run at absolute maximum power even as she went plummeting into the atmosphere.

Most of it was a vain attempt to combat a sudden intrusion on her systems. Floating Array’s stolen sword had suddenly registered itself back in, but with a malicious side effect: what was evidently a virus, meant to override her normal faculties. It was spreading rapidly, making like a wildfire to the most core parts of her brain. The smallest part of Penny registered this as Ironwood and the Ace-Ops  _ hurting  _ her, hurting her to suit their own ends even when it could kill her again in the process. Did they know she was already wounded? she wondered. Was her life solely something to be taken advantage of?

Those weren’t odds worth calculating, however. Still another part of her brain, one focused solely on self-preservation, was fruitlessly calculating her entry angle, likely landing spot, terminal velocity, and endless other factors. She tried to get the preprogrammed routines to stop, to inform them that they were only making her hurt  _ more _ , but it was of no use. Even as the heat overtook her, she was a slave to her own design. Besides, it was pointless. Survival would only come as a miracle.

This wasn’t like the last time she’d died.

Then, death had been sudden. It had been a jolt of brief pain, a numbness, and then simply being gone. Even in the last seconds, where her HUD had crashed as her eyes had dilated out, there had been no uncertainty or room for the horrors of doubt; it had simply been that one second Penny was there, the next second she was not.

This, on the other hand? This was hell itself. She felt nothing but heat, and it bothered her more than it ever had before she had become the Winter Maiden. Atlas was not a place for fire and brimstone, for the scorching temperatures that now engulfed its supposed Protector. She couldn’t see properly anymore, between the fury in her mind and the fire obscuring her vision. And while she loved the sensation of flying and considered it truly one of the greatest gifts her father had bestowed upon her, falling was anathema to her. To be out of control, to risk hurting another in her path, and to be dashed upon the ground like a dropped porcelain doll was in of itself a combination of some of her greatest fears. And she didn’t even know if death was one hundred percent certain, and the prospect of what would happen if she lived was of absolutely no comfort to her.

This wasn’t like the last time she died, and it terrified her.

She tried to focus, tried to latch onto anything that she could to keep her sane in what moments she had left. Penny knew she had to think of one of the girls of her group, of Ruby or Nora or Weiss, in case this was it for her. She hated herself in that moment, for potentially burdening one of them with that curse, but what was the alternative? To think of Cinder or Emerald, the women who had engineered her death? To think of Winter, and give Ironwood what he wanted?

Or to think of none of them and to let the powers go? Let oblivion come.

She began to relax. To let herself fade, to let herself fall, to let herself burn. And in that moment, her father’s voice came to her. Her father who loved her so dearly, who had never wished this world on her, who had gifted her his optimism if a little of his naivete as well, spoke to her.

_ “Please, baby, say something!”  _

Her eyes reactivated, just for a moment, even if they hurt, and she closed them gently. The power of a thousand women before her gave her the strength. Not to save her, but to give her the last chance she hadn’t gotten when she’d died. In the seconds that hung in the air, dead silent to her even as the sky split around her, she prayed her creator would not see what came after she hit the ground. And she was thankful for the opportunity as she said, 

“I love you.”  __

And then she was gone, and she did not know if she would wake up again.

**Author's Note:**

> i actually posted this on fanfiction online back after "amity" aired cuz i was planning on moving there but they locked me out of my account lolrip


End file.
